


don't let our hearts freeze

by youmeandem



Category: Dare Me (TV 2019), Dare Me - Megan Abbott
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, F/F, Hunger Games, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, but they're all just tributes, nearly everyone with a name makes an appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23827597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youmeandem/pseuds/youmeandem
Summary: But whatever Beth tried to do, it didn’t work. Addy throws herself forward, towards the Cornucopia. She forgets about Beth Cassidy and focuses on one thing only: getting her hands on a weapon. Any weapon.or:hunger games au
Relationships: Beth Cassidy/Addy Hanlon
Comments: 81
Kudos: 196





	1. Chapter 1

Sunlight blinds Addy’s eyes for the first few seconds she’s elevatored into the arena. Precious time she would’ve liked to not be wasted. Confined to her plate for the first sixty seconds of the Games, she observes her surroundings and the other tributes.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the 72nd Hunger Games begin,” the disembodied voice of Claudius Templesmith says. “And may the odds be ever in your favor.”

They’re on top of a stony hill, the shining golden Cornucopia obscuring her sight on the tributes directly opposite of her, and all around them are the ruins of what must’ve been a city once. Broken columns and dilapidated buildings, all whites and yellows. Rich flora everywhere—plants she recognizes and plants she’s never seen before. And, along the edge of the city, woods.

Her heart does a little jump. If she wants to survive, that’s where she will have to go.

She blinks against the bright reflection of the Cornucopia, forcing herself to look at the weapons and other gear the Gamemakers left them with this year. Even from where she’s standing, a good forty meters from the mouth of the Cornucopia, she can see a wide array of weapons. Spears, swords, bows and arrows, javelins, and even slings. Next to them are about ten shields, a rare find in the Games. The Gamemakers don’t like tributes being too capable of defending themselves. There must be a reason for including them. There are other items, too. Backpacks that could any number of items, pieces of rope and plastic scattered all over the circle formed by the tribute plates.

Addy eyes the weapons. She knows what Colette wants her to do.

“Grab whatever you can and get the hell out of there. You won’t survive the bloodbath, but you won’t survive without a weapon, either. You’re fit. You stand a chance.” The words echo in Addy’s mind, as they have the past since Colette had said them. It’s terrifying advice. Addy has seen enough Games to know that the most lives are lost during the opening fight at the Cornucopia, but she also has to have faith that Colette knows what she’s talking about. She fought her way through the Games, and she wants Addy to do the same. It’s the only way she’ll stand a real chance. Addy knows this—but still.

She looks at the tributes on either side of her. Some of them, like Tess from 5 and Emily from 10, look like they’re about to throw up. Others, like Cori from 8 and Brianna from 10, seem more determined. Ready to fight. And then there are the Careers, like Beth Cassidy from 2, who have been training for this their whole lives. Even right now, they can’t seem to wait for the first blood to be spilled. And they want to be the ones who spill it.

Beth Cassidy is two plates to Addy’s left, and her eyes are trained on the weapons in the Cornucopia. Her lips seem to move. Is she counting down the seconds?

Shit. Addy should’ve done that, too. There can’t be more than ten left.

Ten seconds until the Games start.

Addy’s mouth goes dry. She bends her knees slightly and tries to tear her gaze away from Beth. But then Beth turns her head and stares straight into Addy’s eyes. A smirk forms on her lips.

The gong sounds.

But whatever Beth tried to do, it didn’t work. Addy throws herself forward, towards the Cornucopia. She forgets about Beth Cassidy and focuses on one thing only: getting her hands on a weapon. Any weapon.

From the corner of her eyes she sees the boy from 10 running next to her, but he seems to be focused on a green backpack. In a split second decision, Addy veers off course the slightest bit, just enough to shove him aside and grab the backpack for herself.

No time to think. This is the Hunger Games. It’s everyone for themselves now. 

She doesn’t stop running to sling the backpack over her shoulders. Doesn’t stop when she sees the male Career from 1 get his hands on the first sword and instantly hacking away at the unfortunate tribute in his way. Addy doesn’t stop to see the blood spurting from her neck.

She keeps running. Almost there.

With just two meters left, her path is blocked by a boy whose name or district she doesn’t remember, his eyes glistening with the unquenchable thirst for blood. She dives forward, tackling him to the ground.

In the back of her head, she hears Colette’s voice again. “Always go for the kill. It might be the difference between coming home and dying in the arena.”

But Colette didn’t tell her that wrestling a guy who’s also fighting for his life is a lot harder than sparring with the trainers at the Training Center.

One second Addy has the upper hand, pressing her hands down on the boy’s throat, not thinking about the way his eyes bulge from his head as his face turns red, and the next he knees in the stomach so hard she sees actual stars. And then he’s on top of her, choking her, and she wants to cough but she can’t fucking breathe. She can’t reach for his face and she can’t see. She can’t do anything.

For a split second she thinks that this is how it will end for her and she hopes that Slocum is doing a lot better because District 7 could really use another victor. But then the boy coughs up blood and his fingers go slack around her throat.

Addy wants to take a breath of relief, but there’s no time. Because Beth Cassidy is towering over her, holding a knife that’s covered in the boy’s blood. She’s breathing hard and bleeding from a cut just above her eyebrow, her blue eyes trained on Addy’s face.

 _She’s gonna kill me_ , Addy thinks. Beth didn’t save Addy’s life. She just made another kill. And now she’s gonna kill Addy.

But Beth doesn’t move. She grips the handle of the knife, but she doesn’t lunge forward to stab Addy with it. She just stands there. Like this isn’t the Hunger Games. Like there aren’t children dying right outside the Cornucopia.

For a moment, the world is frozen.

Then someone, another Career, calls Beth’s name. Beth unfreezes. She spins around and runs back to where the rest of the fight is happening.

What the fuck?

But Addy can’t afford to be surprised right now. She has to move. There’ll be time to assess what just happened later. First she needs to get her hands on a weapon. Almost dying cost her precious minutes that she really couldn’t afford to lose.

She scrambles to her feet and looks around at what the Cornucopia has to offer. Mostly weapons. It looks like everything else was outside in the field, and probably gone by now. Another mistake that could be fatal.

Colette must be shaking her head at Addy’s incompetence right now.

But Addy’s still alive. She still stands a chance. She grabs two knives, shoving one of them into her belt and gripping the other one tight. Then she takes a spear, which is surprisingly lightweight, and decides she can’t carry any more.

One backpack and three weapons. If she makes it out of here alive, Colette will be proud of her.

Most of the fighting moved to the side of the Cornucopia. Already the hill is littered with bodies, and the sand is no longer brown—it’s red.

Beth and the other Careers are fighting the last of the tributes that decided to stay for the bloodbath, but even to Addy’s untrained eyes it’s easy to see that it’s an unfair fight. And even though Colette told her to _fight_ , Addy wants to put as much distance between herself and the Career pack, which seems to still be complete. No Career tribute will die today.

Beth, already covered in blood, drives her knife through a girl’s throat. She’s not smirking anymore.

Addy starts running down the steep hill, her sights set on the woods. No one can climb trees better than her, not even Slocum, and thus her best chance of survival lies within those woods.

Up close, the ruins of the city are, admittedly, pretty cool. Addy doesn’t know much of ancient architecture because almost all the topics they covered at school were about lumber, but the landscape vaguely reminds her of somewhere, even though she can’t put her finger on what.

Ivy crawls up the few walls that are left standing, and there are even a couple buildings that seem to be rather intact. A perfect hiding spot for tributes who don’t know how to survive in the woods or don’t belong to the Career pack.

Addy’s halfway through the city when the first cannon goes off, signaling the end of the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. She doesn’t stop to listen, but she counts every shot.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

Silence.

Nine dead. Fifteen tributes left, six of which are working together in a lethal alliance. Despite making it out and being armed, the odds aren’t exactly in Addy’s favor.

Addy estimates about two hours have passed since she ran from the Cornucopia when she finally reaches the edge of the woods, and all that time the sun was beating down on her. A layer of sweat has formed on every square inch of Addy’s skin, and the clothes she was made to wear don’t seem to be much help at all.

Her outfit consisted of three parts: a thin T-shirt, some type of cloak that’s fastened with clasps around her waist, and a pair of lightweight pants. All light colors—to reflect sunlight? It’s not doing a great job. She’s also wearing white leather boots that are heavy but comfortable. Already, her outfit is covered in mud and blood from the boy Beth killed. For all the Capitol’s obsessions with fashion and makeup, they clearly didn’t think this one through.

The woods are a welcome break of green after all that brown, but they are nothing like the ones back home. There, the trees are planted in neat rows and given growth accelerator to continuously be able to provide all of Panem of lumber. Here, however, the woods are more natural. Addy knows the arenas are build, but whoever built them did a good job at pretending like everything is grown naturally.

The sound of the woods, however, is exactly like home. Birds are chirping, small animals are running around rustling the land, and the wind is blowing through the trees. There’s a large variety of them here—pine, maple, oak… and there seems to be no end to them.

Addy wanders around in the tree line for a while, before deciding that it’s probably smarter to go deeper into the woods for safety reasons. When nightfall comes she doesn’t want to be anywhere she can be easily spotted by other tributes, not until she can assess the situation and make a plan for the next couple of days.

And she needs water. Her throat and mouth are completely dry from running around in the blazing sun all day, and even though the trees provide shadow and a slight breeze, she needs water to quench her thirst.

Come to think of it, she hasn’t seen any water at all today, not even from the hill with the Cornucopia.

Shit.

Now that the issue of water has crossed her mind, she becomes hyper-aware of the dehydration that’s setting in quick. Suddenly the dryness in her throat is all she can focus on. She tries to lick her lips, but her tongue feels like sandpaper rather than the relief she seeks.

Maybe there’s a bottle of water in her backpack.

She tucks both her knives into her belt and, holding the javelin in one hand, swiftly climbs up a high, sturdy looking tree. She doesn’t go too high, just high enough to be out of reach for most tributes, and stations herself at the base of a branch. Taking her backpack off her shoulders, she leans her sweat-covered back against the cool bark of the tree.

The contents of the backpack turn out to be a massive disappointment: a tarp, a small, empty bottle, and a flashlight which is the epitome of useless. No one in their right mind is going to use a flashlight in the Hunger Games.

For some reason, the useless backpack hits harder than the fact that Addy almost died today, and she wants to fling it out of the tree in a fit of rage. But she doesn’t. Nothing is useless in the Games, she just has to find the right purpose for it.

She shoves everything back into the backpack and slings it back over her shoulders, climbing higher up the tree in hopes of finding a source of water. Instead she finds herself in a fairly good position to overlook a large part of the arena.

In the distance, the Cornucopia shimmers in the sunset, sitting firmly on top of its hill. It’s impossible to see if anyone’s still there, but Addy wouldn’t be surprised if the Career pack made their camp somewhere close to it. Unless there’s no water at the Cornucopia either, it’s the single best vantage point in the arena—it’s definitely the highest.

The city seems to be build around the Cornucopia hill, in turn surrounded by the woods. No water in sight anywhere. Not even a vague shimmer.

Now that the sun is setting, the temperature is dropping rapidly, and Addy suddenly realizes she can use the tarp as some sort of sleeping bag for lack of an actual sleeping bag. It’s still not cold, but it’s significantly colder than before, and with the wind blowing through Addy’s clothes against her sweaty skin, Addy can’t help but shiver.

But it’s peaceful up here. She doesn’t want to go down yet. Up here, she can almost trick herself into believing that this isn’t her reality.

As the sun sinks away behind the trees, the anthem sounds, followed by the seal of the Capitol. Addy has a premium seat to the show, but the death recap is just photos and a district number.

Both tributes from 3. The boy from 5—Tess survived. The girl from 6. The boy from 8. Slocum survived! Addy hasn’t forgotten about him, but they agreed they wouldn’t form an alliance. Addy didn’t want to take the chance of it coming down to the two of them. Still, she’s glad he survived the first day. Tania, the girl from 9. She smiled at Addy once, during their three days of training together. It’s how she knows some of their names, like Beth and Cori and Brianna. Both Cori’s and Brianna’s district partners didn’t make it. Neither did both tributes from District 11. Then the boy from 12.

The sky goes dark, and Addy’s left to her own thoughts. Realization is setting in. Fourteen more will have to die, and the chance of her being one of them are extremely high. There’s no point in lying to herself. If she makes it into the final eight it’ll be a miracle. She won’t be surprised if Beth will be crowned this year’s victor.

No. She can’t think like this. She has to keep fighting until the last second. Her mom is waiting for her. She promised Colette she would do everything to come back. She can do this.

Addy Hanlon can become the 72nd victor. And she will.

But for all her newfound resolve to survive, the lack of water quickly becomes an issue again. It drives Addy out of the safety of her tree and onward. There has to be water somewhere. It’s no fun to watch twenty-four kids lose their mind due to dehydration.

Addy walks until it’s pitch black and the only way to continue her journey would be by using the flashlight. No water today.

Addy climbs up another tree, finding a branch to sleep. She uses her tarp and belt to make a makeshift bed that will assure she’s not gonna fall to her death in the middle of the night, and clasps both her hands around her knives.

It’s almost impossible to fall asleep, with thousands of thoughts racing through her mind and her body begging for even a single drop of water, but after a while the exhaustion takes over.

She awakens to the sound of chirping birds and the warmth of the sun’s first rays on her face.

Did she really sleep through the entire night undisturbed? That’s an unexpected but welcome surprise.

She doesn’t waste time undoing her bed, shoving the tarp back into her backpack and the belt back around her waist. Her mouth is still dry, and on top of that her stomach has now realized it hadn’t been fed in nearly a day. She _has_ to find food and water.

Just as she’s about to drop down from the tree and continue her search, she suddenly hears voices.

Careers?

No.

Two girls.

Addy readjusts her grip on the javelin.

Cori and Brianna walk into sight, both looking significantly worse than Addy remembers them. Brianna’s limping, her arm slung over Cori’s shoulders, and Cori’s clothes are all but torn to shreds, a large gash running down her arm. What the hell happened to them? Did another tribute do this? Or the Gamemakers?

It would be easy to take them out, even if Addy’s dehydrated state. The both of them are wounded, and Addy is not. She doubts they have any weapons.

But these are the girls she ate lunch with at the Training Center, against better judgment. And now it comes back to bite her in the ass. She can’t kill them. She can’t have their blood on their hands. It’s different now than during the bloodbath, although she doesn’t why.

“Let’s go back,” Cori says. “They’re probably long gone by now, and we haven’t seen any other source of water anywhere else.”

 _Water_!

“Which is precisely why they’re probably still there,” Brianna says, but there’s no resolve in her voice. It’s not quite defeat, but it’s close.

They stop walking, right underneath Addy. If either of them bothered to look up… but they don’t. Neither of them are from districts where people just sit in trees all day. It doesn’t cross their minds.

“Why? There’s water in the city.”

Shit.

Brianna lets go of Cori, limping to a tree and resting her hand against it. “Because we’re easy to finish off. They’re probably waiting for us to come back. And they have our stuff, too. We’d be stupid to go back.”

 _Go back_ , Addy thinks. They found water. They can lead her to it. Maybe she can kill one of them and force the other one to show her where it is.

“We left hours ago. I doubt they’re still in the area. They have something better to do, like hunt down the others.”

Brianna looks at Cori. For a second it looks like she’s gonna fight her on it some more, but she must be exhausted, because then she sighs. “Okay, fine.”

They start hobbling back in the same direction they came from. Addy soundlessly drops out of the tree behind them, still holding her javelin tight, and follows them at a distance. It’s a slow process, neither Cori nor Brianna able to move fast, and it crosses Addy’s mind that killing them would possibly be a mercy.

It’s agonizing, knowing that she’s walking towards a source of water but having to be patient. Addy doesn’t know how long they’ve been on the move or what time of day it is when Cori and Brianna slow down even more. Addy shoots up a tree again, watching as Cori and Brianna let go of each other and have a silent conversation with their eyes.

Then Brianna sits down against the side of a tree and Cori continues on her own. From where she’s sitting, Addy has a better view of the area around them than Cori does from the ground.

It’s empty, save for them.

And then she sees it. A vague shimmering between the trees. It’s not just a small pool of water, it’s a whole stream.

Again, Addy’s hand tightens around the javelin. Good thing, too, because less than a second later a boy with curly hair steps from behind a tree with a knife in his hand.

Cori screams.

Addy’s brain goes blank as she drops from the tree, scaring the shit out of Brianna, who also starts screaming—Cori’s name.

But Addy doesn’t want to hurt either of them. They gave her water. She just doesn’t want to give it up for this pale boy.

Her vision clouds over as she sprints towards the stream, where the boy is forcing Cori’s head underwater.

Why doesn’t he just slit her throat? This is worse on everyone involved. Except Addy.

Despite the last time she did this going horribly wrong, she tackles the boy head off of Cori. But she learned, too. Instead of trying to strangle him she just runs her javelin through his neck. Blood bubbles up from the wound and his mouth as he staggers backwards, before collapsing against a tree.

Somewhere in the back of her head she hears Colette’s voice saying, “Like that.”

Then the canon goes off and Addy’s entire body feels like she was just dumped into an ice bath.

Her first kill.

She just killed someone.

For water.

 _Water_.

Time to think later. First it’s time to rehydrate.

She turns around to where Brianna has dragged Cori out of the water and is sobbing quietly, both their terrified eyes glued to Addy.

“Is this water drinkable?” Addy asks.

“Please don’t kill us,” Brianna cries.

Addy stares at her.

“It’s drinkable,” Cori says, voice still hoarse from almost drowning.

Addy doesn’t waste time making a snarky remark at Brianna, dropping to her knees and gulping up the water straight from the stream. She tries to drink slowly, but it’s hard to restrain herself. Still, after a few ounces, she forces herself to pull back. She digs through her backpack for the bottle, dunking it into the stream to fill it.

As it’s filling up, she becomes aware of the fact that Cori and Brianna are still staring at her.

“What?” she asks.

Brianna’s arms are protectively thrown over Cori. “Are you gonna kill us?”

Addy considers this, but she already knows the answer. Despite knowing that every screen in Panem is currently displaying her face—what else could be going on that’s more interesting?—she shakes her head. “No. But you do need to get out of here.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder at the dead boy. “They can’t collect the body if we’re still here.”

It’s sad, but true. Trying not to show too much emotions about _killing a person_ , Addy goes to retrieve the javelin from where it’s still stuck in the boy’s neck. Not the best move to leave it in, perhaps, but she was otherwise occupied and Cori and Brianna aren’t in any state to make use of the opportunity to get a weapon on their hands.

Just before turning around, Addy spots a backpack sitting behind the tree where the boy jumped from. Inside, she finds a couple of dried strips of meat and half a pack of crackers. A smile tugs at her lips. The remorse of killing the boy ebbs away in an instant, and she repacks her own backpack with the food.

She doesn’t look at the body as she walks away, following the stream back into the woods. It might be a dangerous tactic to stick this close to one of the only sources of water, but she doesn’t really have another choice. She doesn’t want a repeat of yesterday.

Addy munches on the food from the boy’s backpack as she travels deeper into the woods, but after her limbs don’t feel like jelly anymore she decides to ration the rest. As much as she tries to deny it to herself, she’s still a little shaken from making her first kill, even if it brought her food and one step closer to home.

She walked for, maybe, a couple of hours, when she decides to take a break and make a plan. She, once again, climbs a tree and checks her surroundings. The Cornucopia hill is still pretty far away and the fierce sunlight instantly has her breaking out into a sweat. She lowers herself to a branch in the shade, drinks some water, and sits.

So far ten tributes have died—nine in the bloodbath and the boy whose blood still stains her clothes. They must’ve been in the arena for about twenty-four hours now, and despite all the excitement from this morning, that means the Games have been slow. Addy wouldn’t be surprised if the Gamemakers are currently looking for a way to spice things up a little. She can only hope that the spicing won’t involve her, since she provided the Capitol with some A+ entertainment earlier. With some luck, though, the spice will get at least two more tributes killed today. And then there’ll be eleven left.

Should she start hunting them down? It certainly beats waiting for them to find her. She doubts that Beth will spare her life another time, if that’s even what really happened. Maybe she misinterpreted it all…

But no. Addy knows that that’s what happened. After all, Beth stood up for her before, at the Training Center.

From where she’s sitting up in her tree, Addy sees two figures coming down the stream, and she groans when she realizes who it is.

She doesn’t bother jumping down from the tree, instead making sure that they really are the only ones in the area before leaning down and whisper-yelling, “Why the fuck are you following me?”

Cori, who maybe looks a slightly bit better but not by much, shrugs. “You seem capable and we are decidedly not.”

“I don’t want you near me,” Addy says, twirling her javelin to seem more threatening. But Cori and Brianna don’t seem threatened. They just seem exhausted and in need of help and protection.

Addy climbs down the tree.

“Thank you,” Cori says. “For saving me earlier.”

Addy shrugs. “It had nothing to do with you.”

“Still.”

Addy looks at them, for real this time. It’s not a pretty sight. She remembers them from the Training Center, an unlikely pair. They didn’t know each other before coming to the Capitol, but during the three days of training they rarely left each other’s sides. If Addy squints a little she can still see the cowgirl outfits Brianna’s stylists had put her in during the Tribute Parade and the interview. District 10. Livestock. Right now, though, she’s pale, drenched in sweat despite the temperature being pretty nice, and she’s not making use of her left leg at all.

Cori doesn’t seem to be much better. What’s left of her clothes is covered in blood, and her skin is ashen. She had the sense of tying a piece of cloth around the cut on her arm, but that bandage is already starting to seep through. There’s nothing left of the smiles and jokes Addy remembers from her during training, replaced by a hollowness in her eyes that doesn’t seem like it’ll ever fill back up again.

Addy really doesn’t want allies, and she doesn’t need them either. She’s a decent fighter, has weapons and enough resources to last her at least a couple of days, and having allies—weak ones at that—will only decrease her chances of her own survival. She wants to tell them no, even wants to drive her javelin into their bodies and help them out of their misery, but she can’t.

A cannon goes off.

All three of them startle. Addy is the first to recover.

“I don’t have time to form an alliance,” she says. “I have to keep moving and figure out a way to end the Careers. They’re the biggest threat in the arena. And, no offense, but the two of you will only slow me down.”

“The Careers are in the city,” Cori says, surprising both Addy and Brianna. “What? She’s right. We don’t stand a chance against them, but she might. Look at her. She’s armed to the teeth.”

Addy squares her shoulders.

“There’s water in the city. Springs, like the source of this stream,” Cori continues. “All the Careers are working together in teams of two, but their camp is at one of these springs. Two of them are left behind to stand guard, and the other four are running around looking for victims.” She looks at Addy. “You helped me, I helped you. We’re even now.”

Addy nods. Her eyes fall on the wound on Cori’s arm, the tight red skin peeking out underneath the makeshift bandage. Her expression must be easy to read, because Cori follows her gaze and sighs.

“I know it’s infected, but we have nothing to treat it with.”

“Neither do I,” Addy says.

Cori doesn’t reply.

How long is Addy supposed to wait before turning her back on them again? Should she just kill them? Colette would want her to. But she knows their names. How is she supposed to kill them if she knows their names? The boy was easy. She barely remembered him at all. But these girls… They’re not doing anything wrong. They’re just victims of the Capitol, just like herself.

“Get out of my face,” she says instead, nodding her head towards where they came from. “If I see you again, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

There. She warned them.

Not that it matters, but she tells herself it does, because she doesn’t know how else she’s gonna make it through.

It works, though. They turn around and, with one last look over their shoulders, disappear between the trees.

Addy watches them go, knowing she just sent them off to die. But their lives aren’t her responsibility. She didn’t come here to make friends. She has more important things to do, like ensuring her own victory. Like putting a knife to Beth Cassidy’s throat and slicing it open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who doesn't love their favorite characters slaughtering each other in the hunger games amirite?
> 
> please leave kudos or a comment if you liked it, or find me on twitter @luthvers or tumblr @ lenacorporations
> 
> thanks astrid for proofreading
> 
> title is from empty gold by halsey


	2. Chapter 2

Three tributes die on the second day. At night, Addy learns that the boy she killed was from District 6. Her first kill.

What’s more surprising is the face of the boy from 1 also appearing in the sky. A dent in the Career pack. One of the first. Certainly not the last.

The final tribute to be shown is the girl from 12.

Half the tributes are dead, but Addy’s still alive and nothing weird happened today. She killed a rabbit with her javelin earlier. Not much was left of the animal, but it was enough to fill her stomach. She made sure to stay close to the stream, too, so there’s no shortage of water.

And she made a plan. It involves leaving the woods, which she hates, but she needs to see the Career pack situation for herself. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Cori, but she doesn’t trust Cori. Nothing personal, she doesn’t trust anyone in the arena. She’d be stupid to.

She will head back towards the city first thing tomorrow morning. Right now she sets up the tarp to protect her from the weather for the night, and tries to fall asleep. Which proves to be a lot harder than last night.

The face of the boy with the curls keep swimming into her vision, as do Cori and Brianna’s faces. After all, she pretty much sent them into their deaths. No, that’s a lie. They would’ve died regardless, it would’ve just been a slower process. And they’re not dead yet. It’s everyone for themselves. Addy did nothing wrong.

Still, she can’t stop thinking about them until she falls into a restless sleep and even then they’re already haunting her dreams.

She awakens to the sound of a cannon going off, shooting upright and almost falling out of her tree. Her heart races against her chest and she looks up at the dark sky—but of course there’s no picture. She won’t know who died until tonight.

What time is it?

Addy tries to go back to sleep, but the adrenaline racing through her blood makes it impossible and she gives up after a few minutes. She packs her stuff and quietly slips down the tree.

She knows where the Careers are, but what about the other tributes? Not including Addy, there are still five or six of them left, and the Gamemakers don’t like to leave them alone for too long. Additionally, despite spending all her time in the woods, Addy has no idea what actually lurks behind them, or worse—within. She hasn’t run into any types of mutts or other man-made forms of life yet, and that can mean one of two things: either she’s had enough drama going on not to be boring, or the Gamemakers are currently planning on something to attack her with.

She hopes it’s the first, which means it’s probably the second.

If only she could let them know not to fuck with her too much somehow. She told Cori and Brianna she was going after the Careers. Maybe that’ll be enough to convince the Gamemakers to leave her alone, at least for another while.

Once again, the stream proves to be extremely useful, as all Addy has to do is follow it upstream. Cori said its source was in the city, and she seems to have spoken the truth, because every time Addy climbs a tree to oversee the arena, she’s closer to the city.

It would probably be safe to veer away from the stream, but Addy doesn’t want to lose her only source of water and there’s no real reason to, except that it maybe would be a little faster, as the stream isn’t a straight line into the city. But she has time.

She finishes the dried strips of meat from the boy’s backpack and a few crackers to settle her growling stomach. She finds herself wishing she was better at hunting, but there’s barely any wildlife around except for a couple of rabbits and birds, and her javelin has proven not to be the most effective weapon for hunting small game. She just decided that adrenaline will have to do for now when she comes upon a large walnut tree. The shells are soft enough to crack with her hands. They’re loud, though, but the idea of a full stomach when she faces she Careers is good enough reason to take the risk.

Sometime halfway through her journey, night turns into dawn and Addy gets a view of the sun rising up behind the hill with the Cornucopia. It’s so pretty she almost forgets she’s in the Games.

Almost.

She reaches the edge of the city just as the sunlight starts to warm the air. The Careers are in there somewhere. They have no idea of the danger lurking just outside the city limits.

Addy doesn’t bother suppressing the grin. Unless there’s something bigger going on, she has all of Panem’s eyes on her right now. Better give them something to look at.

Crouched from the safety of the tree line, she observes.

Most of the buildings have collapsed completely, and there’s debris and loose rubble everywhere. Now that Addy knows where the water runs, she has no trouble spotting at least two or three streams similar to hers running down from the ruins, and she mentally slaps herself for not paying attention before.

Addy stays in her crouched position as she inches into the city, hand wrapped tightly around her javelin. She places each foot strategically as to make as little noise as possible, trying to have her back against a wall at all times. She’s in unknown territory now, and it’s positively terrifying, but it’s the only way. She can’t win if the Careers stick together until they’re the only ones left. No one will survive that, not even Addy.

The rising sun heats up the air fast and it doesn’t take long for Addy to start sweating buckets. She has to stop twice to refill her bottle in the stream, a dangerous endeavor since it’s completely in the open, but no one comes to kill her.

In fact, it’s close to midday when she finally sees another person—and it’s not even one of the Careers. It’s the boy from 10—Brianna’s district partner. Judging by the size of him he can’t be much older than twelve or thirteen, and he doesn’t look like he’s had any food since the Games began. Even from where Addy’s sitting, a good fifty meters away, she can see him shaking all over, cowering away in the sliver of shade provided to him by a fallen pillar that’s resting dangerously on the what must’ve been the wall of a house one time.

But she’s not the only one who’s found him.

Just as she decides to move on and let this boy succumb to his hunger in peace, she spots movement in the corner of her eyes.

It’s Beth. And she’s on a mission. She shows great agility as she slithers from between the buildings to approach the boy, her footsteps soundless and sure. There’s not an ounce of doubt in her body, the knife she’s holding in one hand looking somehow even deadlier than any other knife in the arena.

Beth Cassidy is a prime example of what Career tributes are like. She holds her weapon like it’s an extension of her, and her soundless movements were clearly taught by a professional. Even when she vaults over a wall, there’s not a sound to be heard. Not even the crunching of pebbles underneath her boots.

It’s impressive, Addy has to give her that. It’s also a way to learn more about Beth’s hunting tactic, and Addy isn’t the type to throw away an opportunity like that. She inches closer to the wall, securing a tiny bit of shadow to watch the scene play out in the front of her. Suddenly it feels like she’s watching the Hunger Games, instead of participating in it.

Beth climbs up the broken pillar until she’s standing right over the boy. She doesn’t hesitate.

The boy barely gets a scream out when Beth’s knife silences him, but it’s enough to send a chill down Addy’s spine and she has to bite down on her hand in order not to let out a yelp.

Beth stands up, a fresh coat of blood on her already bloody clothes.

The cannon goes off.

Beth uses the boy’s clothes to wipe the blood off her knife. She leans back down and when she comes up again she’s holding something, but she’s too far away from Addy to see what it is.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” a low voice comes from behind Addy, and before she can process what’s happening, a strong hand grabs her by the back of her shirt and pulls her to her feet.

Addy flaunts for a moment, but then her javelin is torn from her grip and both her hands are locked behind her back in a painful grip.

Shit.

It must be the Career Beth was hunting with. Shit. How could she have forgotten they hunt in pairs?

“Let go of me,” Addy hisses, but struggling is useless. The guy’s too strong. She turns her head to look at him, and instantly recognizes him as Beth’s district partner. Of fucking course. Two of the most ruthless tributes and she’s caught right in the middle of them.

“Did you enjoy the show?” the guy says in Addy’s ear, the sadistic tone of his voice making Addy’s blood run cold. “She’s dangerous, that one, isn’t she?”

If only he loosened his grip a little, just enough for Addy to grab her knife… but he doesn’t. Instead, he squeezes Addy’s hands so tight with one of his hands that tears spring into her eyes from pain, while he reaches for his own knife with his other.

The blade is cold against Addy’s cheek and she hisses when he digs the sharp edge into her skin, just enough to draw blood.

“You’re pretty,” he says, his breath hot against her ear. “Too bad you have to die. We could’ve had fun together.”

“Gross,” Addy chokes out, trying to keep her voice steady as to not let him know how terrified she really is. At this point, she doesn’t even know if she could do anything to hurt him. In fact, her knees feel so weak he’s pretty much the only thing holding her up, and she hates it. She hates that this moment is right there for all of Panem to see. She hates that Colette must be currently shifting whatever sponsor resources they gathered to helping Slocum now that Addy’s about to be dead.

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that,” the guy says, tapping the side of Addy’s throat with the tip of his knife. “You’re hot, I’m hot. We could’ve been hot together.”

Addy’s trembling. _Just kill me_ , she thinks, all the bravery of before leaving her body. She’s about to die. She’s allowed to be scared.

Then, as if Beth senses the knife pressed against Addy’s throat, she looks up. Her eyes lock with Addy’s. And, undoubtedly wanting to claim the kill for herself, she throws her own knife. It moves almost faster than a speeding bullet, yet at the same time Addy watches the knife approach her almost in slow-motion.

She closes her eyes.

The knife hits its target, and the guy from 2 staggers backwards. A cannon goes off.

Addy’s still alive.

_What the fuck?_

Beth materializes next to her, slightly out of breath and a lot less graceful than what can’t have been more than a couple minutes before. She doesn’t acknowledge Addy as she strides past her to pull the knife out of the guy’s eye.

The sounds sends a wave of nausea washes over Addy, and what little breakfast she had comes right back up again.

When she’s done throwing up, she looks up to find Beth somewhat impatiently standing next to her, holding all of the guy’s weapons and other useful belongings in her hands.

“Are you done?” she asks, putting the knife she just pulled out of the guy in her belt. “They’re not gonna get Kurtz until we leave, and I want him out of the arena as fast as possible.”

Addy blinks. “I’m not going with you.”

Beth rolls her eyes. “I just saved your life.”

“By killing your district partner. Isn’t that, like, against the rules or something?”

“There are no rules in the arena,” Beth says, reaching down to grab the javelin Addy dropped. But Addy’s faster, shoving Beth backwards into a piece of broken wall, and grabbing the javelin back. She points it at Beth.

“Why the fuck do you keep saving me? I never asked you to.”

Beth gives her an unimpressed look. “You’ll never make it without me.”

She’s right. If it weren’t for Beth, Addy would’ve been dead twice already. She wouldn’t be anywhere without Beth, and she hates it. She doesn’t not like being indebted to someone.

Before they left for the arena, Colette told her that as long as Addy stayed alive, she would be putting all the sponsor resources into her, not Slocum. She’s the one with the highest chance at survival, the tribute from District 7 with the potential to win this thing. And yet she has Beth Cassidy to thank for her survival.

“You want to stay alive, right?” Beth asks.

Addy nods.

“Then stick with me. And don’t even think about trying to kill me. I just killed my own district partner who, by the way, got the highest score out of all of us. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Addy lowers her javelin, but she doesn’t loosen her grip. Beth is right. Kurtz had a 10. Beth got a 9. Addy only scored a 7 after showing she could climb pretty much anything really fast and was pretty decent with a knife. But Beth must’ve been holding back, because so far she’s been the most impressive tribute Addy’s ever seen. Rarely any tribute has ever killed their district partner, because returning to your district with their blood on your hands is one of the least favorable outcomes. Next to dying.

“Follow me,” Beth says, before instantly vaulting over a wall.

She probably doesn’t expect Addy to literally follow her, but Addy’s from District 7, where you learn to climb a tree before you learn to walk. So Addy has no trouble following her, landing quietly on her feet.

Beth gives her a slightly impressed look, but it’s enough for now.

Addy expected Beth to lead them out of the city, but instead they’re going farther towards the Cornucopia again. She considers asking, but she doubts she’d get a straight answer and, to be honest, even with the protection of a Career, she doesn’t want to make too much sound and lure any other tributes towards them.

It crosses her mind that Beth might be leading her into a trap of even more tributes, even though she knows that logically that would make no sense. Killing your district partner as part of some elaborate plan to kill _one_ tribute? Not even a tribute of Beth’s caliber would do that.

Right now, somewhere in the Capitol, Colette is probably pulling her hair out and yelling at a screen for Addy to drive her javelin through Beth’s unprotected back. And she considers it. She really does. She doesn’t trust Beth one bit, but it seems to be in her best interest to pretend she does, at least until there’s only a handful of tributes left and the realization that there can only be one victor dawns on them. Until then, she’ll just have to sleep with one eye open.

She hopes Colette understands.

They walk and climb for about half an hour until Beth signals at Addy to crouch down. They’re at the foot of the Cornucopia hill now, and the sound of voices reaches Addy’s ears.

“Wait here,” Beth says.

Before Addy can reply, she straightens up and walks straight into the Career’s camp like nothing ever happened. Addy presses herself up against the wall, daring to peer past the corner at where Beth is marching straight for a number of supplies.

The camp setup is simple: inside three sand-colored walls of what used to be a house, a bunch of sleeping bags are thrown onto the floor surrounding a campfire. The walls are lined with a shit ton of weapons and four of the shields Addy saw at the Cornucopia on the first day. Two Careers, from District 4, are sitting on blocks they must’ve pulled into the house to use as chairs.

“Hey, RiRi. Tibbs,” she says, without a trace of nerves in her voice. Any updates?”

The girl, RiRi, shakes her head. “We heard the cannons. Where’s Kurtz?”

“We found these idiots cowering away in one of the intact houses. Killed them, of course. But Kurtz got a little hurt. I told him to stay put while I went back to grab some gear and, like, bandages or some shit. I don’t know. He’s a big wuss if you ask me.”

Beth can act, Addy notes. Another reason not to trust her.

“You know what they say,” RiRi says. “Guys who act like that…” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“Hey,” the guy, Tibbs, says, actually sounding offended. But Beth and RiRi ignore him.

Beth continues stuffing supplies into a backpack—lightweight sleeping bags, medical supplies, and some food. RiRi watches her closely, maybe suspecting something is up, but doesn’t dare to speak up against Beth. Seems like even the other Careers know that Beth is the one to look out for.

“What do you need sleeping bags for?” Tibbs asks, clearly not as bright.

“To fuck,” Beth replies, grabbing two large water bottles and adding them to the backpack. Then she zips it shut and reaches for one of the four shields. Addy wants to yell at her and tell her to take two shields, but she can see how that wouldn’t end well for either of them so she keeps her mouth shut.

“I’m gonna take this back to Kurtz,” Beth says, hoisting the backpack onto her back. She also grabs a sword from the pile, looking a lot like an ancient warrior with a shield in one hand and the sword in the other. “I’ll bring him back tomorrow and we can go out hunting together,” she adds, addressing RiRi with a wink.

RiRi eats it up.

Beth’s sweet smile disappears the instant she turns around, walking back to Addy with all the supplies she just basically stole from herself. She doesn’t signal for Addy to follow her again, just walks straight past her with all the loot, and Addy hates that she instantly follows her.

Maybe they need to talk about their communication a little once they’re safely back into the woods.

They walk in silence for a good hour, the sun beating down on them relentlessly, but Beth doesn’t stop to take a breather even once. She refuses to pause and she refuses to let Addy rest as well—and Addy refuses to ask. She will not be lesser than anyone in this arena, most of all Beth Cassidy.

They pass the spot where Kurtz and the boy from 10 died, and Beth doesn’t even bat an eye. She, like Addy, seems to have decided that the woods are relatively the safest place in the arena. Addy wonders if there are any trees in District 2.

Probably not.

Beth stops at the tree line, finally turning around for the first time since they left the Career camp. Her face is red with sunburn and covered in sweat and dust, but the fire in her eyes burns as bright as ever. “Your turn to lead.”

Addy stares at her.

“You’re from 7, right? That means you’re good with trees and shit. I’ll cover you from the back.”

And suddenly Addy doesn’t want to be leader anymore. “What if you stab me in the back?”

Beth rolls her eyes, a signature move it seems. “Listen, Hanlon. If I wanted you dead, you would’ve been long on your way back to District 7 already. You can trust me not to kill you.”

It feels significant, the use of Addy’s last name, like Beth took the time to memorize it. But then Addy realizes that she knows Beth’s last name, too, and she pushes the feeling back down again.

“Fine,” Addy says, stepping between the trees. “But if you even dare to touch me I will not hesitate to stab you with this.” She holds up the javelin.

Beth smirks. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Are you always like this?”

“Like what?”

“Smug. Arrogant. Cocky,” Addy says.

Something flickers behind Beth’s eyes, but she quickly blinks it away. “Why do you think I volunteered?” But it’s not a question.

Addy doesn’t reply. She leads them into the woods diagonally, until they come across another stream. There, they fill up the bottles Beth grabbed from the Career camp, and start to equally divide the rest of the stuff. Addy gets a sleeping bag and half of the food and medical supplies. There’s even a vial of antibiotics. If she’d had this when she came across Cori and Brianna, which feels like years ago, she could’ve saved Cori from the infection.

Addy shakes her head. There’s no need to think like that. No more cannons have gone off since Kurtz, which means that both Cori and Brianna are still alive, and it’s not like either of them actually stood a chance. And even if they did, their survival means Addy would never see her mom again. This is the Hunger Games. Not the friendly games.

To distract herself, she turns to Beth. “Is District 2 really like the rumors?”

“Depends on what those rumors are,” Beth says.

Addy shrugs. “Strict. Buddies with the Capitol.”

If she were home, she would’ve never said it bluntly like this for fear of her words getting repeated until they reached a Peacekeeper. But what are they gonna do about it now? Throw her into an arena with a bunch of other kids to kill each other?

Beth’s eyes go wide for a moment, before undoubtedly drawing the same conclusion as Addy. They’re probably not even broadcasting them right now, favoring another tribute who isn’t exchanging top secret information with another tribute.

“I think we deserve rumors that are a bit more nuanced,” Beth says. “We still have to work hard and we still have to participate in the Games.”

“But you still find time to train.”

Beth looks at Addy with a new expression on her face, one that Addy can’t quite place. “Not officially, no. It’s not allowed per the laws of the Hunger Games.”

“But it still happens. You didn’t wake up on the morning of the first day of training suddenly able to throw knives with that type of precision. There’s a reason you’re known as Career Tributes by the rest of us, you know.”

“We don’t like being called that,” Beth says. “It hurts our feelings.”

It’s quiet for another while, the two of them following the slow stream deeper into the woods. After all the excitement of the day, Addy has to admit it’s a nice change of pace. She even feels somewhat safer with Beth around. Not that she’d ever tell her that.

As the sun sinks down between the trees, they decide to set up camp in the lee behind a fallen tree. Addy would have preferred to climb a tree, but, as it turns out, Beth is great at climbing walls but not very capable at climbing trees. And out of solidarity Addy decides to stay on the ground, too. After all, she does owe Beth.

If things go sideways she can always shoot up a tree as a last resort.

Neither of them is in favor of building a fire, even though Beth had a fire in the Career camp. Addy still doesn’t understand why Beth decided to abandon them. Maybe she thought it would be better to just leave them sooner rather than later.

They’re eating some of the food Beth stole when the anthem plays and the Capitol seal is projected onto the sky. What little conversation they had silent when Kurtz’ picture appears, followed by the boy from 9, and then the boy from 10. The boy from 9 was the one whose cannon woke up Addy this morning, and Beth killed the other two.

For the first time since meeting her, she looks a little sad about it.

“Hey,” Addy says, nudging Beth’s boot with her own. “You okay?”

Beth nods. “Yeah. Just tired. It’s been a whole day.”

“At least we’re both still alive,” Addy says.

“At least there’s still that.”

More silence. Addy doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like sad Beth. Until now, she didn’t realize Beth had feelings and she’d rather it stayed that way. She rather look at Beth and see the ruthless killer who stepped up to volunteer as tribute a couple weeks ago. It’s easier to see her as the enemy than a potential friend.

“Can I ask something?”

Beth looks up. “Sure.”

“Why did you volunteer?”

“Oh.”

Addy looks down at the blade of the knife she’s holding. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“It’s kind of expected of you, I guess,” Beth says, like she didn’t hear Addy at all. “When you’re top of your class, your trainer, like, recommends you? It’s a huge honor and you don’t even think to turn it down. So when the day comes, you know you’re going to be up on that stage, regardless of if your name gets drawn or if you have to volunteer. We’re told all our lives that this is it. The thing we work towards.” She lets out a hollow laugh. “If you turn nineteen and you haven’t been in the Games, you’re one of _those_ people, and no one wants that.”

Addy tries to imagine it. District 7 isn’t particularly rich or poor, and most people learn how to use an axe pretty early in their lives. But there aren’t always axes in the arena—as evident by the lack of one in Addy’s hands right now—and hard work and not-always-great food haven’t always proven to be the best combination to prepare the children for the Games.

There are only a handful of victors—including last year’s Johanna Mason—and most of them had to use one smart strategy or another. The only one who literally fought her way to victory, actively hunting down tributes and breaking up the Career pack much like Addy was planning on this morning, is Colette. To most of the tributes, the Games means death.

“Turns out, though,” Beth continues, a cynical tone to her voice, “that things are never the way you expect them to be.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and Addy doesn’t ask. Everyone deals with things their own way. She’s not going to judge Beth for any of it.

They finish dinner with a couple of walnuts Addy cracks the shells of, and she learns that Beth never had walnuts before. She also learns that Beth really likes walnuts, and ends up giving her the rest of her share, if only to push down the nagging feeling that she owes Beth.

“I’ll take first watch,” Addy says, not quite trusting Beth for the sole reason that these are the Hunger Games and one’s survival will mean the other’s death.

“No, I can do it. I don’t need much sleep,” Beth says, and there’s a certain sincerity to her voice that has Addy crawling into her sleeping bag. She zips it up all the way until there’s only a strip of skin still visible, planning for a long night without a lot of sleep.

But there’s nothing to worry about. Beth just sits in her own sleeping bag with watchful eyes, and even though Addy knows that this girl killed two guys in cold blood and is currently holding a knife inside of that sleeping bag that she will not hesitate to use, she can’t help but think that there’s something peaceful about the whole situation. If she forgets about all the murder and the fact that death could be lurking behind the next tree, it’s almost like they could be two friends who are out camping. If they were friends, that is. Which they’re not. You have to like someone in order to be their friend, and Addy Hanlon does not, in fact, like Beth Cassidy.

She doesn’t.

When she wakes up the next morning, it’s already dawn.

“Why didn’t you wake me up to relieve you?” she asks, a little pissed that Beth made this decision for her.

Beth looks at her. “I told you—I don’t sleep.”

“Bullshit. Everyone needs to sleep sometimes.”

“Not me,” Beth says, in a calm tone. “Come on, let’s pack our stuff and get a move on. If we stay here too long, the Gamemakers are gonna do something about it.”

Despite being mad at Beth, Addy still does what she says, because, as much as she hates to admit it, Beth is right. Packing their bags doesn’t take too long, and Beth ends up offering Addy her shield—perhaps to make up for not waking her.

And then they’re on their way again, neither of them quite sure where they’re going, but they’ll run into someone eventually. And if they don’t, the Gamemakers will make them. This is the one rule of the Hunger Games you can always count on: they will never be boring.

How could they, with everyone’s life on the line like this?

Addy is in front again, the shield in one hand and the javelin in the other. Her eyes are trained on the trees in front of her, occasionally sweeping up to check if there’s no one watching them from above, which is why she fails to notice the snake slithering towards them on the ground until it’s too late.

A sharp pain shoots up her leg and she yelps, looking down just in time to see the snake let go of her boot and slip away between the fallen leaves, leaving two holes in the leather. One has a liquid— _venom!—_ running down on the outside, but the other one is dry. Which can only mean one thing.

“Shit,” Addy mutters, already feeling lightheaded. She turns to look at Beth, who stares back at her, completely frozen in shock, and Addy is unsure whether the smoke in her lungs is caused by the snake’s venom or the sheer panic rising up in her chest.

Then the world starts spinning uncontrollably and her weapons clatter to the ground. An uncomfortably hot fire spreads through her veins, and her knees buckle.

The last thing she sees is Beth rushing towards her with her arms open, and then everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to the dare me dutchies, love yall bitches
> 
> if you enjoyed, please leave kudos/a comment. ao3 doesn't count people who read without an account anymore so there's no real way for me to know how many people are reading this, and that sucks. 
> 
> alternatively, find me on twitter @luthvers or on tumblr @ lenacorporations
> 
> thanks astrid for proofreading, as always


	3. Chapter 3

Addy always thought death would be less painful than this. One time back home, she burned herself on a still smoldering log, and she still felt the soaring pain weeks later. It’s a lot like that, but this time it’s her organs. Flames lick at her insides, melting her veins.

Is this what the afterlife is like?

Is this the repercussion for killing the boy from 6? For leaving Cori and Brianna to die? For planning to slit Beth’s throat even after she saved her life twice?

A distant voice calls her name. “Addy, please stay with me. Don’t you dare fucking die.”

Addy wants to reply, tell Beth that it’s okay. That she should’ve never thought she could win the Games. People like her don’t become victors.

But her tongue is heavy in her mouth and she can’t get her head to work for long enough to form a coherent sentence.

Hands press down into her, and in an instant the fire erupts to an even higher level. The pain centers on a single point on the inside of her elbow and Addy thinks she might be screaming.

Then the world falls away.

***

At the Training Center, they were told to “save the fighting for the arena”, but that didn’t stop some of the Career tributes from picking on the others to get a rise out of them.

Addy thought it was dumb. They were only a few days away from being forced to fight each other to the death, and yet these Careers were acting like they were bullies at some stupid summer camp.

Addy had decided to mostly keep herself, only really talking to Slocum, but she wasn’t blind. It was hard to miss the Careers finding each other by the bloodlust in their eyes, the ruthlessness when handling weapons most of the tributes saw for the first time in their lives.

Most prominent of all were the District 2 tributes, always the cruelest. As soon as she laid eyes on her, Addy knew that Beth Cassidy was a cold-blooded killer. Normal people didn’t have that look about them, didn’t carry themselves with the arrogance that came with knowing they could kill you in at least a dozen ways before you even realized what was happening.

She wouldn’t learn Beth’s district partner’s name until later, when they were already in the arena, but it didn’t matter. The two of them were nearly attached to the hip, going through all the training rounds together. They weren’t allowed to spar with other tributes, but the trainers weren’t equipped to deal with them, so they did it anyway. They sparred together. If the whole thing hadn’t been to prepare twenty-three of them for their deaths, most likely by a District 2 tribute’s hands, it would’ve been a bliss to look at.

At times they moved so fast their bodies became a blur of limbs swiping at each other and blocking punches. More than once, everyone else stopped just to look at them.

Maybe it was their tactic. Show off their skills to intimidate everyone else to leave them alone in the arena.

If it was, it definitely worked. No one but the other Careers dared to even talk about them during training. Only afterwards, in the safety of their own quarters, did Addy and Slocum bring them up.

“2 seems determined to win this thing,” Slocum said during dinner, all of them munching on tender meats and mashed potatoes and more types of sauces than Addy ever even knew existed.

“Which one?” Colette asked. Like always, she looked absolutely in control of everything. Her nails were the familiar shade of orange that she wore during her Games and never stopped putting on. Addy grew up admiring her from afar, whenever her Games were replayed on the television or at times when she saw her heading back into the Victor’s Village.

Colette French always had some air of superiority about her. People either wanted to fuck her or they wanted to be her, and Addy never knew which side of the scale she fell on. But Addy also knew that the only way to become Colette French was by winning the Games. Seemed like she got her wish after all.

“Both,” Slocum said, describing the way Beth and Kurtz had been holding a knife throwing contest between the two of them. Beth had won, but Kurtz came a close second.

“2’s always dangerous,” Colette said, eyes flickering over to Addy. “But you can beat them. They’re brutes, trained to fight, but if you use your brain and be patient, they’re beatable.”

It’s what she did in her Games, of course, waiting for the Career pack to break up. Three of them died that day, two killed and the third one incapable of surviving in the mountainous area on her own. It left Colette to finish the other three, picking them off one by one, emerging from the last kill a victor.

Addy soaked it all up, Colette’s advice. After all, who knew better than her?

“What do you suggest?” Addy asked.

Colette looked at her while she took a sip of her wine, the rim of the glass staining red from her lipstick. “Find their weaknesses and use it against them.”

Beth Cassidy’s weakness, as it turned out, was Addy Hanlon.

Addy never quite figured out why, but towards the end of the second day at the Training Center, most of the other tributes had figured out that Addy could be someone to look out for. She wasn’t particularly skilled with anything, but she was decent at most things. Better at throwing axes than any one of them. Okay at using a bow. Enough to be more threatening than most of the others. A non-Career who stood a chance.

So the Careers started paying attention to her.

First it was just the ones from 1 shadowing her, then the girl from 4. Then the boy from 2. They stared at her with watchful eyes, weapons in hand. None of them bothered to learn survival tactics, and neither did Addy. She grew up in the woods. There’s almost always woods or something to burn in the Games. The Gamemakers don’t want them to freeze to death. It’s a whole thing.

At first she tried to ignore them, but then, during lunch, they crowded around her and Slocum—and they weren’t there for Slocum.

“Can I help you?” she asked, voice sharp for a District 7 girl.

They laughed and she couldn’t tell what it meant. Their laughs were cold and sadistic, showing all their teeth like animals when they feel threatened.

“Leave her alone,” came a voice from behind, and when Addy turned around she saw Beth Cassidy, holding a plate of food and a small knife she must’ve stolen from the knife station. “Go pick on someone who’ll be an actual threat to us.”

Derogatory.

Addy shot up from her seat. She was taller than Beth, towering over her by at least half a foot. “You wish. I’m not your fucking damsel in distress.”

Something sparked in Beth’s eyes, something that peered through the thick layer of arrogant smugness, reaching straight into Addy’s soul. Their gazes held strong for a moment, and then Beth turned away. She sat down at another table with the rest of the Careers, and that was that.

But from that moment on, Addy kept a closer eye on her, and she could tell Beth did the same to her. Because sometimes when she wasn’t looking, she’d feel Beth’s eyes burning holes into her back, and sometimes when she tried to sneak a look at Beth she’d meet her eyes instead.

It became a source of great annoyance to Addy the entire second day, and by dinnertime Colette was all caught up on the situation.

“I just don’t know what the hell her problem is,” Addy said, angrily stabbing her potatoes with her fork. “She’s just trying to get under my skin, but I’m not gonna let it happen.”

Colette shrugged. “You could always push back. Two can play this game.”

Addy stopped stabbing her food. Colette was right. She didn’t have to accept this type of behavior from anyone, especially not Beth. Something was obviously going on with Beth. Addy was determined to find out what. Just because she came from District 7 didn’t mean she couldn’t play with the big kids.

So on the third and final day of training, she made sure to follow Beth everywhere she went. There wasn’t much she still wanted to learn anyways, and mind games were just as much part of the Games as the fighting. Such were the rules of pretty much any game: get into your opponents head and you’ll always have the upper hand.

But Beth seemed unbothered by the whole situation, throwing knives and spears and learning how to tell poisonous plants apart from edible ones. The latter was a more recent development. While the other Careers were still showing off their skills with a number of weapons, Beth had taken to learning a couple of survival skills. Addy wasn’t sure if it was a tactic to throw off anyone watching her, of if she genuinely wanted to learn those types of things, but after a quick warming up, Beth spent most of her time learning how to survive in different types of terrains. And while she was doing that, she barely even acknowledged Addy’s presence—a stark contrast to the previous day.

Addy didn’t know which she hated more.

Here’s what she did know: just before lunch, after which the tributes would have to do their solo session to show the Gamemakers their talents, Addy and Beth were learning how to make hunting traps from various materials when suddenly Beth shoved Addy to the ground.

A whizzing sound, followed by a sharp hiss from Beth, reached Addy’s ears.

“What the hell, Beth?” Addy gasped, grasping at her shoulders where Beth pushed her.

Beth didn’t reply. When Addy looked up, she saw Beth bleeding from a cut just below her shoulder, and a knife was stuck in the chest of one of the training dummy’s just a few meters behind them.

Across the room, Kurtz was laughing.

A group of trainers approached him, and someone wearing what appeared to be a medical uniform came to take Beth away to get her arm healed up.

As she was walking off, Beth glanced at Addy, who glared back. She didn’t want or need Beth Cassidy saving her. They were about to be thrown into an arena to slaughter each other like animals. Addy wasn’t about to be indebted to a Career tribute.

She rolled her shoulders and pushed the whole thing to the back of her mind.

When Colette heard about the incident, she was livid. It was against the rules to harm another tribute before the Games, and while Addy hadn’t been hurt and Kurtz claimed he’d been aiming at the dummy all along, no one really believed him. His knife had still hurt Beth, which Addy cared significantly less about, but the Gamemakers still decided to do nothing about it. The issue had been resolved by District’s mentor and escort, and that was that.

The next time Addy saw Beth, at the interviews, the only evidence of the altercation was a paper-thin white line against Beth’s already pale skin. It was practically invisible, and no one talked about it ever again. Instead Caesar Flickerman focused on the provocative dress and heavy makeup Beth had been put in, asked about her strategy for the Games, and failed to notice the way Beth’s voice slightly falters when she talked about how she got a training score of 9.

(By throwing a bunch of knives and pulling a funny trick with a sword, apparently. Not that Addy was paying attention.)

During Addy’s own interview, she explained how living in District 7 had prepared her for the Games, and how she was going to try and follow in Colette’s footsteps.

Caesar leaned in like he was going to tell her a secret, and when she leaned in too he said, “Colette French scares me a little.”

Addy pretended to laugh along, eager to make the sponsors like her. “I think we’re all a little scared of her, but that’s exactly the vibe I’m going for.”

“Yes, indeed. Do you hear that, ladies and gentlemen?” he asked the camera with that strange mix of sincere encouragement and showbiz amusement. “Don’t count her out just yet!”

The buzzer went off, and with that Addy was whisked off the stage. As she walked past the other tributes, she could feel all the Career’s eyes on her—except for Beth’s.

Something had changed.

Addy just couldn’t put her finger on what.

***

Addy opens her eyes. The sky is dark—it’s night. Her entire body feels sore, like the flames have turned into a smolder before going out completely. She tries to sit up, but a sharp ache shoots her arm and, with a groan, she sinks back down again.

“Morning, sunshine,” Beth says from next to her, merely a silhouette against the black night sky as she leans over Addy. “It’s about time you woke up.”

“How long was I out?” Addy asks, her mind still foggy. She remembers waking up and packing their bags to continue their journey downstream. She remembers… the snake!

Did Beth save her? _Again_?

“I’d say about a day and a half,” Beth says, alarmingly calm.

Addy shoots up for real this time, ignoring the stabbing pain. They’re back at the uprooted tree they spent the previous night, and she’s in her sleeping bag. Both her boots are off, and when she runs her fingers over her ankle she can clearly feel a small hole from where the snake’s fang dug into her skin.

Beth must’ve dragged her all the way back here and put her into the sleeping bag and everything. She could’ve just left her to die. She probably should have.

“How many?”

Beth is quiet for a moment, and if it weren’t for the sound of her breathing Addy wouldn’t have known she was still there. Then she clears her throat. “Two.”

Addy doesn’t reply. There’s more. She can hear it in Beth’s voice.

And there is. Because Beth takes a deep breath and, in a serious tone, continues, “The girls from 8 and 10 died a couple of hours ago.”

Cori and Brianna.

Beth must’ve seen her eat lunch with them the first day of training.

“Oh,” is all Addy can say.

“The good news is that you’ve got some really good sponsors,” Beth says. And she explains what happened after the snake bite.

It took approximately two seconds for the snake’s venom to knock Addy out—which felt much longer. Beth tried to suck the venom out, but it didn’t work, which meant the snake was probably a mutt. Once she realized that, she also realized that the only way Addy was gonna survive this was by administering an antidote, and the only way to get that was by getting it from sponsors.

Beth had already given up on it, because medicine like this was expensive, especially this far into the Games, but then a silver parachute came floating down and landed right next to them.

Beth, not being an idiot, shoved the needle right up Addy’s arm, watching as the pain fell away from Addy’s face.

“Didn’t you hear me scream?” Addy asks, flinching from just the memory of the pressure on the inside of her elbow.

Beth gives her a sad smile. “You didn’t make a sound, Addy.”

Beth expected Addy to wake up pretty quickly after that, but she didn’t. Beth didn’t dare move her for the first couple of hours, keeping careful watch over her unconscious body. Only when it became apparent that Addy wasn’t gonna wake up any time soon did she carefully drag her back to the lee underneath the tree where they’d spent the night before.

At some point, Beth wasn’t sure Addy was gonna wake up at all, but her only two options were to wait until Addy either opened her eyes or her cannon went off, or leave her alone and try her own luck at winning the Games.

Addy looks at Beth then, frowning. “Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t get you this far only to abandon you when shit got boring,” Beth says, curled lips hinting at a smile but never really getting there.

Thankfully the Gamemakers left them alone. They were probably too boring, especially considering the fact that towards the night two cannons went off, fairly quick after each other. The sky told Beth they belonged to Cori and Brianna. But she didn’t know how they died. Addy will have to wait until she’s out of the arena to find that out.

“How many of us are left?” Addy asks, already doing the math in her head.

Beth’s faster. “Seven. They must be interviewing our families right now.”

Addy thinks about Capitol officials coming to District 7 to gather Slocum’s parents and her mom. Do the people back home think they stand a chance? There are still four Careers, one of whom is Beth. Will her mom believe she’s doing the right thing by staying with Beth? Or does she want her to shove a knife down her throat?

Colette would want her to do the latter. But she also took the risk of spending sponsor money on an antidote to the snake venom, knowing that Beth could’ve thrown it away instead of administering it.

Addy looks at Beth, the vague outline of her against the dark sky. Why is this girl, this Career who is undoubtedly able to win the Games in just a matter of days, insistent on keeping Addy alive? They barely know each other. And yet Addy will forever be indebted to her.

Nothing she can ever do will be enough to make up for the four times that Beth saved her life so far. How is she ever supposed to let her die? How is she ever supposed to _kill_ her? Even if these are the Hunger Games, Addy still has some morals.

“Thank you for not letting me die,” she says,

Beth is quiet for a moment. Then she sighs. “You’re welcome.”

Addy shifts in her sleeping bag. Her body is still a little sore, but overall she’s pretty well-rested. “You can sleep, if you want. I think I’m okay to keep watch.”

“I’m not tired.”

“I don’t believe you,” Addy says. “You’ve been awake for at least three days straight. You have to be tired. I promise I won’t kill you in your sleep.”

“No, I’m good.”

_Holy shit_. This girl is stubborn.

Addy rolls her eyes. “Okay, fine.”

It’s too dark to see Beth now. Addy’s grateful for it. With only seven of them left, her chances at winning this thing are both higher and lower than ever. Higher because there’s less tributes between her and victory, lower because those tributes are undoubtedly better equipped to kill her.

Who knows when Beth will decide that she had enough of Addy? Addy isn’t eager to find out. There’s no way she’ll be able to take on Beth, who spent her whole life training for this. And, if she’s honest, she doesn’t want to, either. Not only because of some morality thing—Beth’s just good company to keep. She’s a tough little shell, but it’s not hard to see the beating heart underneath.

If there’s one thing that’ll get you killed in the Games, though, it’s caring about someone.

Beth falls asleep less than thirty minutes later. Addy can tell by the way her breath evens out and the way her leg twitches against Addy’s once; all signs that Beth’s exhaustion finally overcame her.

It’s impossible to tell how much longer the night will last, both from the Gamemakers’ ability to manipulate it and from Addy having no frame of reference for how long it’d been dark when she woke up, but Addy decides to use the rest of it to come up with a plan.

She pushes the fact that this will be her umpteenth plan, when all the others pretty much failed spectacularly, to the back of her mind.

The way she sees it there are several options concerning Beth. She could kill her in her sleep, breaking her promise but being one tribute closer to victory. She doesn’t really like that option.

She could also just pack her stuff and leave, forcing the both of them to fend for themselves for the rest of the Games. Even if Beth was pretty insistent on teaming up earlier, surely she would take the hint if she woke up alone. But the chances of this ending in the two of them being the last two tributes left standing are high, and Addy really doesn’t want that to happen.

Last option: she sticks it out. Stays with Beth until they’re inevitably separated—or forced to kill each other.

Frankly, all her options are shit. The Hunger Games are shit.

Surely Beth already thought of all of this. Surely she has some idea of how she wants to play this. Addy would like to trust her, Beth seems smart, but still. Can she really trust her? It’s her life on the line, too. How many more deaths until Beth decides that Addy will be next? Addy’s seen her kill. She’s cold and ruthless, no matter how many nights she’ll sit by Addy’s body waiting for her to wake up.

However many hours pass and then it’s dusk, the earliest sunrays lighting up the world around them. Touching upon Beth’s face.

She’s covered in blood and dirt, and maybe Addy’s touch starved and starting to go a little insane, but she realizes with a start that Beth is beautiful. Her face is peaceful under the relaxation of sleep, and she’s curled in on herself, much like a cat. Suddenly she’s no longer the coldblooded killer Addy got to know the past few days, but the pretty sixteen year-old girl that she’s supposed to be.

Something twists in Addy’s stomach. She blames the snake venom, even though it’s long gone from her system now.

Her eyes fall on a strand of hair that has gracefully fallen to cover half of Beth’s face, and Addy has the sudden urge to reach out and tuck it behind Beth’s ear. Her hand is already halfway when she realizes that it would be stupid to potentially wake Beth like this, under these circumstances, especially considering the fact that Beth is likely holding a knife in her hand right now, but it’s too late—Beth’s eyes flutter open.

And she smiles.

“Hey,” she says, voice impossibly small with sleep.

“Hi,” Addy says back, frozen in her half-hovering-over-Beth position. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“’s okay,” Beth mumbles.

“I just—” Addy reaches over before she can change her mind, fingertips brushing over Beth’s cheekbone. It sends a jolt of warmth up her arm and down her spine, and she feels her face flushing as she tucks the strand of hair behind Beth’s ear. “There, that’s better.”

Beth doesn’t move, eyes locked on Addy the entire time. “Thanks.”

Addy sits back, though not as far as before, still within touching distance. “Did you sleep well?”

“I had a dream about you,” Beth says. She sits up a little and rubs her eyes with both her hands, revealing that she was indeed holding a knife. “We were on top of the hill together, but it wasn’t the Games. We were just there. Just you and me.”

“What were we doing?”

Beth looks down at her hands, covered in smudges and the remnants of blood. “I don’t remember.”

“Oh.”

Addy looks up at where the sun is rapidly climbing higher into the air. It breaks the moment, but Addy’s glad. She doesn’t know what she would’ve done otherwise.

“We should probably get going,” she says, rolling her shoulders and stretching her body. “We’ve got tributes to kill.”

They don’t spend too long packing up. By now, Addy’s lost track of the days and how long she’s been in the arena, but she figured about a week has passed. Seventeen tributes died in the span of a single week. It must be one of the fastest Hunger Games ever.

Beth lets Addy carry the shield, but she hangs on to the sword. At first, they walk around aimlessly, too restless to stay in one place but not wanting to stray too far from the city. Tributes who put too much distance between themselves and the others are more likely to be pulled back into the game by the Gamemakers, and neither of them feel like being chased by mutts or wildfire.

They try to figure out who’s still alive, and, more importantly, who’s a real threat.

“Zoe, me, and RiRi,” Beth says, counting them on her fingers. “Tibbs. The girl from 5. And you and the boy from your district.”

“Slocum,” Addy says. “He’s my neighbor, back home.”

Beth quirks her eyebrows. “You call him by his last name?”

“As if your district partner didn’t go by Kurtz.”

Beth laughs, but it’s hollow. “Fair enough. Zoe and RiRi aren’t a threat. They made it mostly because they’re Careers and have good sponsors. I’ve seen the way people respond to RiRi. She’s hot, but she’s not a victor.”

“I wish we knew what the girl from 5 is up to. She must’ve made it this far for a reason, right?”

“Maybe she’s just lucky,” Beth says. “Or strategic. But she’s not a fighter. I’ve seen her at the Training Center. She wasn’t great at handling weapons.”

“Could’ve been a strategy,” Addy says, remembering last year’s Games, when Johanna used that exact same tactic.

“Perhaps.” Beth looks at her, raising her sword into the air as it to slash the girl from 5 with it. “And what about you, Addy Hanlon? What’s your secret weapon?”

“You,” Addy says, almost immediately.

The truth of it is so raw it’s almost painful, but Beth barely has any reaction to it. At first Addy thinks it’s because Beth, for some reason, put her mask back on to hide her emotions, but then she hears it too.

Something right in front of them, and then suddenly all around them, too.

Hail. No—a hailstorm. Millions of the tiniest pieces of hard ice, each of them sharp enough to claw at their skin.

“Run,” Beth shouts.

But it’s unnecessary. Addy’s body seems to catch up faster than her mind, turning around and taking off into the opposite direction of where they came from, using her shield to cover her head.

She hears Beth’s footsteps right behind her, no longer light and calculated, but fast and frantic.

As they run, back towards the city like expected, the air grows cold around them. They’re enveloped into a cloud of pure ice, its tendrils ripping into their clothes and painfully digging into their skin.

At first they manage to outrun the hail, Beth always staying behind Addy for some reason. It can’t be that Addy’s genuinely the faster runner between the two of them, but there’s no time to question her motives. They have to keep running, even when their lungs are burning and their legs are wobbly.

Addy looks over her shoulder once, catching a glimpse of the desperation in Beth’s eyes as she hurdles herself over logs and rocks, barely giving any care to where she’s planting her feet. It’s such a stark contrast from the confident Career that it’s almost unsettling.

But, of course, you can’t train for this.

Running is one thing. Running through a man-made hailstorm is neigh on impossible.

They come across a stream, but by now the air’s so cold the water has already begun to freeze over. Addy knows she should slow down and be more careful, the edges of her vision starting to blur from sheer exhaustion, but if she stops now she’ll never be able to get back on her feet.

It seems like Beth is thinking the same thing. Neither of them stop to cross the stream, instead barging right through the thin layer of ice. The cold of the water seeps through the hole in Addy’s boot, biting at the still-healing wound from where the snake sank its tooth into her ankle, and she stumbles.

For a second she’s sure she’ll drop to her knees. She almost drops her shield.

But then Beth grabs her and pulls her—hard.

They keep running, hands clasped together. If they let go now, they might not be able to find each other back.

The hail keeps beating down on them.

Addy doesn’t know how long they’ve been running. It could be ten minutes or ten hours or anywhere in between, but she does know that she won’t be able to keep going for much longer. And, judging by the sweat shining on Beth’s face and the way her eyes are almost bulging out of her head, neither can Beth.

It’s impossible to see what’s in front of them, impossible to know where their feet are landing.

Then Beth screams and her hand is ripped out of Addy’s. A loud thud reaches Addy’s ears. She turns around and freezes, hail continuing to beating down against the metal of her shield.

Beth’s on the ground, gasping for air and cradling her right knee with both hands. Hail ruthlessly crashes down on her, tearing at her clothes and skin.

For a split second, Addy wants to leave her there. It would be so easy to just run off and wait for Beth’s cannon to go off.

But all rational thoughts have gone out the window, and she finds herself turning around. She throws her shield on her back and runs back, reaching out for Beth. It’s almost impossible to see anything, and Beth feels cold as stone, but stones don’t groan.

“C’mon, just a little bit further,” Addy says, barely able to get the words out.

“No, Addy. _Go_ ,” Beth wheezes, making no effort to move. “Save yourself.”

Addy shakes her head, hoisting Beth to her feet. She throws one of Beth’s arms over her own shoulders and uses the shield to keep the worst of the hail from reaching them. Beth groans and stumbles, and Addy suddenly realizes that this is how they both die.

They barely make it another hundred meters or so when Beth collapses again, Addy unable to hold her weight any longer. She instinctively drops to the ground alongside Beth, rolling on top of her. She pulls the shield over them, but it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna die from exhaustion and hypothermia and there’s no way she’ll ever be able to repay Beth for getting her this far.

Addy presses her face into Beth’s freezing shoulder, shivering and trembling and waiting to die. Then the cannon goes off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so dare me got cancelled and i, along with the rest of the fandom who dedicated their whole life to this show, instantly went into existential crisis mode. here's to hoping netflix or some other network will come in and save it, but until then bless ao3 and the book i guess. we'll get through this together guys
> 
> if you enjoyed this chapter please leave kudos if you haven't already and/or a comment, because i know some people feel like their comments aren't important but i promise that when you're a fic author every comment is like a drop of water in the desert
> 
> otherwise feel free to find me on twitter @luthvers or tumblr @ lenacorporations
> 
> thanks astrid for proofreading, i wouldn't be anywhere without you


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: major character death. this is the hunger games, after all

“Beth?” Addy shoots up. She’s almost frantic as she searches for a pulse on Beth’s wrists, her neck—her chest.

It’s faint, but it’s there.

Tears spring into Addy’s eyes. It wasn’t Beth’s cannon. She’s still alive. But Addy has to get her out of the hailstorm and warmed up, otherwise she won’t last much longer. And neither will Addy.

Addy grabs Beth just underneath her armpits, lifting her limp upper body just far enough off the ground as to not scrape her skin off against the frozen dirt. Moving her like this is a slow process, combined with the hail still raining down on them, but she has no other option. They have to keep moving, even if it means leaving most of their weapons behind—Addy can’t see a way to bring them, and it’s far from her priority right now. They’ll have to make due with the two knives in Addy’s belt and the one in Beth’s.

After what feels like eternity, the air around them finally clears up. The clouds and the cold remain, but at least there’s no more hail. Addy looks up to find them at the edge of the woods. Not the safest place in the arena, but it’ll have to do for now.

Addy rolls off of Beth, flopping down onto the hard ground. She’s so cold she’s not even shivering anymore, which is probably a bad sign, but she really doesn’t care. All she wants is to go to sleep. Cuddle up against Beth and fall asleep and wake up with the sun shining down on them.

It takes every ounce of willpower for Addy to gather enough strength to get on her knees, then stand up. Black spots cloud her vision and she has to lean against a tree for a good minute to blink them away.

They’re in a part of the woods that Addy hasn’t been to before, almost close enough to touch the outskirts of the city. Clouds loom over every part of the arena, and Addy’s pretty certain she can’t drag Beth any further. She’ll have to trust that no one will come to slice their throat while they warm up. Which—she will have to build a fire. The last thing anyone wants to do in the Hunger Games. But there’s not enough body heat left between the two of them, and her hope at seeing sunlight again is long gone.

As much as Addy tries to hurry, building the fire still takes a long time. It’s lucky that she’s from District 7, otherwise it would’ve taken even longer, but between finding pieces of firewood, checking if Beth’s still breathing every few minutes, and actually lighting the fire, at least half an hour must have passed when the first flames finally appear.

Another fifteen minutes pass as Addy tries to stuff Beth into the driest of the two sleeping bags, her hypothermic body stiff and uncooperative. She tries to ignore the blue coloring around Beth’s lips or the way her skin feels like literal ice. They’re both bleeding from the dozens of small cuts the hail caused, Beth especially, even on her face, but Addy can’t focus on that right now.

Already she can feel the warmth of the fire reaching inside of her, slowly thawing her limbs, and because there’s not much else to do than wait for Beth to come to, she decides to crawl into the sleeping bag with Beth. It’s a little tight, but it’s the best way to get rid of the cold. Shared body heat. The oldest trick in the book.

Addy wraps her arms around Beth’s body, pulling her as close to herself as possible. If a week ago someone had told her she would be sharing a sleeping bag with Beth Cassidy, she wouldn’t have believed them, and yet here they are.

After a couple of minutes, Addy starts to have trouble keeping her eyes open. It must still be morning, but it feels like three days have passed since the snake bite. Who would’ve guessed running for your life was this exhausting?

But she has to stay awake. She has to keep them safe. Whoever died today must’ve succumbed to the hailstorm. There’s only six of them left. Only five more have to die before this whole thing is finally over.

How long will that last? The hailstorm was clearly done with a purpose, even though two other tributes had already died mere hours earlier. Were the Gamemakers building up to some sort of big final bloodbath? Addy wouldn’t put it below them.

Beth stirs, but she doesn’t open her eyes. Instead, she crawls even closer to Addy, burying her face against Addy’s chest.

Her body no longer feels like an icicle.

It’s actually kind of nice now.

“Beth,” Addy says. “Are you awake?”

Beth doesn’t reply, but they’re so close together that Addy can feel Beth’s heart hammering against her own chest—and Beth’s mouth curling into a smile.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Addy whispers.

Beth shifts for real this time, but there’s not enough space for Addy to see her face. Still, she can imagine what it looks like right now. “You should’ve let me die.”

“I couldn’t,” Addy says. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I had.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Then Addy does something she can’t explain, not even to herself. She presses a kiss to the top of Beth’s head. “You’re welcome.”

For a moment, Beth is completely still. Then she wriggles out of the sleeping bag just enough to align their faces. There’s an unreadable look in her eyes, something warm and delicate and irresistible. So Addy doesn’t resist. She doesn’t even try.

Her eyes flicker down to Beth’s lips. They’re still a little blue, but they’re also almost smiling. And when Addy kisses them, they’re impossibly soft.

The whole world seems to fall away, time slowing down to a stop. There’s nothing but Addy and Beth and their bodies flushed against each other like this is how they’re supposed to be. It’s almost enough to make Addy forget that they’re in the Hunger Games.

It probably doesn’t look like much to the people watching. Just two girls with their faces extremely close together, trying to warm up from another near-death experience. But to them, it’s everything.

When they pull away, their faces are flushed and Addy’s lips are tingling. Beth is smiling, wide and sincere, and something about the way she looks at Addy makes Addy realize the weight of the conclusion she drew what feels like forever ago.

She swallows. “I think I’m warm enough now.”

“Okay,” Beth says, almost robotically.

Addy is careful not to accidentally knee Beth in the face as she climbs out of the sleeping bag, stretching her legs a little. Every time she glances at Beth, who’s shamelessly staring at her with _that_ look in her eyes, her face gets hot again.

She sorts through their backpacks to figure out what’s salvageable and what has to be thrown away. Her own backpack is relatively in tact from being protected by the shield, but Beth’s is nearly completely ripped to shreds. Its contents, the last bits of food and unused medical supplies are mostly okay. Addy divides the food and forces Beth to eat half of it, despite her claims not to be hungry.

(“You almost died today. You need to eat. Trust me, I speak from experience.”)

She eats the other half herself. They’ll have to find more food later, once Beth is back on her feet.

The more Addy warms up, the more she realizes the damage the hail has done on her body. Even her shield couldn’t stop the hail from making dozens of small cuts that make her entire body sting. And Beth’s worse, because she didn’t have the shield.

Most of Addy’s cuts have already stopped bleeding and she wipes the dried blood off of her the best she can, using some of the water they collected in their bottles from the stream, but when she goes to examine Beth she realizes that she has some that are much deeper. Even her face hasn’t been spared.

Addy makes Beth get out of the sleeping bag and strip down to her underwear. This isn’t the time for prudishness, because if even one of those cuts becomes infected it could mean the end of Beth. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t blush, though, all the bravery from before long gone.

She tears a strip of fabric off her shirt and soaks it with disinfectant from the medical supplies. “This might sting a little,” she says, before pressing it to Beth’s skin, everywhere she sees a cut.

Beth doesn’t make a sound. She keeps her face straight, not even her eyes reflecting how much it hurts.

How can it be, Addy wonders, that this girl refuses to show any signs of weakness and yet turns incredibly soft when it comes to Addy? Did she know this about herself? Does it scare her?

It scares Addy, that’s for sure.

After Beth’s as clean and disinfected as she can be, she quietly takes the sleeping bag and crawls back inside of it, sitting herself up against a tree, not quite meeting Addy’s eyes. Addy wordlessly hands her a knife.

“I’m gonna try and see if I can get these clean in the stream,” she says, holding up Beth’s clothes. “I’ll be close.”

The stream isn’t too far away—they didn’t make it _that_ far after Beth went down—and Addy’s fairly certain that she’d still be able to hear Beth screaming if anything happened.

The stream is still half frozen, and Addy curses under her breath as she kneels down to wash out Beth’s clothes. Her hands loose feeling almost immediately, but she keeps going. The amount of dirt and blood that comes out of the clothes is insane, and when Addy can’t take it any longer they’re almost back to white.

Addy wrings them out as best she can and then makes the split decision to wash her own clothes as well. She also splashes some water on herself, but the cold’s too unbearable. For the first time she wishes for the heat from before, but it looks like those days are over. Whatever the Gamemakers’ plan is, summer’s clearly over.

When she’s done washing her own outfit, she doesn’t put it back on. It’s still too damp, and she doesn’t want to give herself hypothermia just after saving Beth from it. So she bundles up the clothes and sprints back to Beth in her underwear.

It must be a comical sight, but Beth is honorable enough not to laugh. She just quirks her eyebrows ever so slightly. “Were you warm?”

Addy grins and rolls her eyes, draping their clothes out over their backpacks by the smoldering fire to dry. Hopefully no one will disturb them before they can put them back on, otherwise they’ll have to run around in their underwear for the rest of the Games. “Are you okay if I let the fire go out? I don’t want to attract too much attention.”

Beth nods. “Sure.”

Addy grabs the other sleeping bag, which is dry now, and joins Beth in sitting against the tree. “What do you think the others are doing right now?”

“Freezing their asses off, just like us,” Beth says, glancing at Addy. “I don’t know who decided that the temperature should just plunge into freezing with all of us wearing these thin ass clothes, but this better not be permanent.”

“Right now would be great to be gifted some sort of warm jacket,” Addy says, looking up at the sky. But no silver parachute drops from the sky.

Beth purses her lips. “Looks like your mentor used up all your sponsors to buy that antidote.”

“Did you get any sponsors at all?”

Beth shrugs. “In the beginning. Minor stuff, like food. But then I killed Kurtz.”

The other 22 tributes are fair game, but people don’t like it when you turn on your district partner. Addy hopes it won’t come down to her and Slocum, because she already knows that she won’t hesitate to take his life. But then that means she’ll have to face her district and the entirety of Panem, knowing that she’s the sole reason that it’s not him in her place. Facing off against Slocum would be worse than facing off against Beth. Way worse.

She can play off whatever Beth and her have going on as pure strategy, a way to get a Career on her side to do all the dirty work until the time is right to get rid of her. No one will remember their kiss by the time the next Hunger Games roll around—maybe not even Addy.

(As if she could ever forget.)

Because she can’t like Beth. When you like someone in the Games, it’s not a matter of if you’ll die. It’s when.

Slocum’s picture hangs in the sky that night.

“Shit,” Beth says afterwards. “I’m sorry. Slocum, right?”

“Michael,” Addy says, almost robotic. “His name was Michael.”

They’re still in their sleeping bags, the temperature not having risen during the day, but it didn’t drop as it went dark either. Sometime during the afternoon they decided to put their clothes back on, even though they were halfway to frozen, and to countereffect the cold they zipped their sleeping bags together to make one big one and crawled against each other to make use of their shared body heat.

Addy hasn’t quite been able to shut off the alarm bells ringing in the back of her mind every time Beth shifted against her, her touch almost electrifying against Addy’s skin. It’s maddening, the way that every minute she spends with Beth makes her want ten more.

“Do you want me to take first watch?” Beth asks, her head warm on Addy’s shoulder.

Addy pulls away from her. “I think we should split up.”

“What?”

“There’s only six of us left,” Addy continues, looking down at her hands to avoid having to look at Beth. “I don’t want it to be you and me to be the last ones standing. I want to go home.”

Beth says nothing for a while. When Addy finally looks up she has this incredibly sad look on her face, but then it disappears to be replaced by a more stoic version of Beth. One where her eyes are blue like ice, instead of blue like a lake.

“Okay,” Beth says. “Do you want me to leave now?”

Addy knows she should say yes, to make it easier on the both of them. But she shakes her head. “No,” she says, and then, almost below a whisper, “I don’t want you to leave.”

Maybe she’s broken something between the two of them, because Beth’s eyes don’t turn soft again. But she does reach out to grab Addy’s arm and put it over her own shoulders, nestling her head back against Addy’s side again.

“I’ll keep first watch,” she says.

Addy doesn’t object.

Morning comes in the form of a kiss.

When Addy opens her eyes, Beth is already pulling back. She’s fully dressed, her knife hanging from her belt. All the sadness is gone from her eyes, and in a way it makes Addy’s stomach drop even more than it would have if she’d cried.

They don’t speak while they unzip their sleeping bags and Beth stuffs hers into the remnants of her backpack. It’s barely hanging together by a thread, but it doesn’t need to hold much. They burned through all their supplies already, and they might not need a whole lot more. The Games are almost over.

Addy keeps her eyes trained on the shield while Beth gets ready to leave, examining all the dents the hail made like they’re the most interesting things she’s ever seen. There’s a very high chance they’re currently being broadcast to every screen in Panem right now, the drama of an alliance ending always doing well in the Capitol, and she can’t risk seeming too emotional about the whole thing. That, and she doesn’t want Beth to know that she actually started to care.

“Okay, I think that’s everything,” Beth says. A moment of heavy silence hangs between them. Then Beth sighs. “Bye, Addy.”

Addy doesn’t look up until Beth’s footsteps are gone.

She packs her own backpack—the sleeping bag and a water bottle are really the only valuable things she has left by now. She needs to find some food and refill the bottle, and then get her head back in the game.

Addy decides to stay in the woods for now. She’s got two knives and a shield, and she’s infinitely more comfortable surrounded by trees.

She spends the day hunting down a deer and wrestling it to the ground by dropping out of a tree on top of it, shoving her knife into its neck before it even realizes what’s happening. It’s too much meat to eat by herself, but she cuts large pieces out of it and wraps them in leaves. Towards late afternoon, she even risks making a fire to roast the venison. There’s only six of them left. How high are the chances of one of the others finding her in this massive arena?

As more time is put between Addy and the last time she saw Beth, Addy slowly starts to shift her focus back to winning again. The chances of seeing Beth again, alive or even at all, are very slim, and, as unfair as that is, it’s just how the Games work. No point in fretting about it.

How long did they really know each other? Two weeks, max. It’s sad, but there’s nothing she can do about it now. She made the right choice to have them split up.

And yet, when Addy wakes to the sound of a cannon going off in the dead of night, she can’t stop wondering if it was Beth’s. She’ll have to wait another day to find out, and even that realization is enough to pull her from sleep completely.

She misses home. She misses her mom, who doesn’t deserve to see her daughter fight for her life day in day out. She misses the smell of freshly chopped down trees, the sawdust annoyingly finding its way into every corner of every room. She even misses school, where she never paid attention and failed almost every class but none of it mattered anyway because she’d inevitably end up working at the lumberyard like everyone else in District 7. Not anymore, though. No matter what happens during the next couple of days, she won’t be one of the people bending over backwards under the watchful eye of the Peacekeepers. That’s the one thing she knows for sure.

Deciding that she can’t go back to sleep anymore, Addy lets herself fall soundlessly from her tree. It’s been too quiet during the day, even though someone just died. She has still only killed one tribute. Some might start to think that she didn’t do anything to deserve the title of victor if she does end up winning.

Addy readjusts the grip on her knife. It’s time to go hunting.

Despite her best efforts scouring the tree line and even entering the city once or twice, Addy doesn’t run into another tribute all day. It’s almost like the Gamemakers don’t want her to find anyone, but she can’t imagine why that’d be.

After the anthem that night, RiRi’s face looks down at her. Addy doesn’t know if that’s better or worse than if it were Beth.

Nineteen dead. Five still fighting. Four people between her and home.

The next morning, Claudius Templesmith invites all the remaining tributes to a feast that afternoon in the square west of the Cornucopia hill. With so few of them left, probably scattered all over the arena, it only makes sense that they want to draw them to one location. It’ll be the big finale. Only one tribute will be walking away from that feast.

Addy doesn’t need anything, perfectly able to live off the woods indefinitely, but she has a feeling that the invitation isn’t without obligation. If she doesn’t show up on her own to give the crowd the one big fight before they have to go a whole year without the slaughter of innocent children, the Gamemakers will find a way to kill her as punishment. She’s watched enough Games to know how they work.

It doesn’t matter either way. She’s leaving the arena today, alive or dead. For one terrifying moment, she doesn’t care about which one.

No.

She does care.

Addy takes her shield and her knives and starts the journey towards the city for the last time.

It’s not too far, just a couple of hours of crouching through the city with her eyes and ears wide open. She uses the position of the sun to determine which side of the Cornucopia hill is west, and to estimate the time of day. She doesn’t want to arrive too early and be the first to run into the square, but she doesn’t want to be late either.

When she arrives, the smell of the food displayed on a long table in the middle of the square is almost overwhelming, almost succeeding in distracting Addy from being on high alert. She shakes her head, tries to ignore the watering in her mouth.

Who else is lurking in the shadows right now? Must be everyone, right? Who is left? Zoe from 1, Beth… Tibbs from 4, Tess from 5, and Addy. Three Careers. Should she come up with a strategy? Wait while they battle it out?

Something zooms past Addy, and she whips around. Has the first tribute gone for the food already?

No. It’s Tess, frozen in place as she stares at Addy. She’s in bad shape, a bloodied makeshift bandage around her upper arm, dragging one of her legs… Is she missing an eye? It’s hard to see underneath all the dirt and blood caked on her face. Standing just a couple feet away from Addy, it’s hard to imagine that she managed to make it all the way to the top 5.

Addy doesn’t hesitate. She leaps forward. Tess tries turn and run away, but Addy’s fingers dig into her bandaged arm to hold her back. She screams and falls onto her knees, writhing in pain. Addy looks at her, at the remaining dark eye staring her down. There’s no fear in it. She’s going down with her honor in tact.

Addy’s knife slices her throat. Her cannon goes off.

Three left to kill.

Fast footsteps approach behind Addy. She barely has time to turn around and raise her shield before Zoe lunges at her, weaponless but with bloody fists that look just as deadly. Zoe collides with Addy’s shield. Addy topples over, her arm bending painfully as Zoe’s full body weight weighs down on the shield.

The final fight has begun.

Addy lashes out with her knife, the sharp edge of the blade tearing at Zoe’s side. Zoe hisses, but she doesn’t flinch. She is a Career, after all. She trained for this moment all her life, for the chance to become a victor. It shows through the fire burning in her eyes. She won’t go down easy like Tess. She’s determined to win this thing, and not just because it means she’ll get to live. She’s fighting for glory.

Like Beth, when she volunteered. Before she met Addy.

Zoe’s fist hits the side of Addy’s head with such force that Addy’s vision goes fuzzy around the edges.

Her limbs go slack for a moment, just enough for Zoe to snatch the knife from Addy’s fist. Sunlight reflects in the blade, but Addy hasn’t given up just yet.

With all the strength she can muster, she rolls over. Zoe loses balance. Addy uses that opportunity to get to her feet, head pounding. Her knees are like jelly, but she wills them to work. Because Addy only cares about one thing: staying alive.

She takes her second knife out of her belt and propels forward, on the offense now. But Zoe doesn’t back down. She fights Addy with all she’s got.

It’s an uneven fight, even Addy can see that. Zoe’s got all the experience Addy lacks, and twice the strength. Addy spends more time dodging Zoe’s strikes than really getting any damage in, but all she needs is that one window of opportunity.

When it finally comes, she’s running on pure adrenaline, muscles burning and heart racing. Blood streams from countless cuts, shallow and deep alike, but she barely feels them. If she’s getting tired, so is Zoe. Even for a Career, spending all this time in the arena takes its toll.

Something scrapes against the pavement behind Addy, and Zoe is momentarily distracted. Just long enough for Addy to drive the blade of her knife between her ribs. Zoe’s eyes go wide. Her knees give out. The cannon fires.

Pain is beating down on Addy’s body, but she refuses to crumble. High on adrenaline, she turns around to find out where the scraping sound came from.

Beth stands in the middle of the square. She’s holding a sword in her left hand, the tip of it resting against the stones. Her right shoulder looks off, like it’s popped out of its socket. A trail of blood runs down her face, between her eyes and down her nose, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Her gaze is fixed on Addy.

If the circumstances were different, Addy would run up to her and kiss her square on the mouth.

Behind Beth, Tibbs appears.

Addy opens her mouth to scream Beth’s name, but it’s unnecessary. Beth already knows.

Time seems to slow down as Beth whips around and raises her sword. It clashes against Tibbs’s, but Addy’s ears are ringing too hard for the sound to land. She stands frozen as Beth easily defends herself, knowing exactly where to put the sword to keep Tibbs’s from ripping her apart. Even with one unusable arm, Beth’s movements are still fluid like she’s a lioness fighting off another predator, and she barely even flinches when Tibbs shoves her hurt shoulder.

There’s no question who’s going to win this fight. It’s Beth. Of course it’s Beth. It has to be Beth.

Addy doesn’t want to think about the implications of that. Can’t think about them.

Beth will win the Hunger Games.

Addy sees the finish line, but Beth is breathing down her neck—hot breath that gives Addy goosebumps and sends a shiver down her spine.

Does she know? The effect she has on people? On Addy? Has she been playing the long game?

Addy has to do something. Her mind blank as she takes a step forward, towards them. Tibbs is bleeding heavily from all the wounds that Beth inflicted on him, his white clothes colored red. He lifts his head and something about the look in his eyes tells Addy that he knows he’s going to lose. But he’s still fighting. He keeps fighting.

It’s all they can do.

Addy’s close to them now. Steam comes off of their bodies. She can feel the warmth radiating off of them. She smells the blood and sweat and dirt.

Their fight will be over in a minute and it’ll be Beth and Addy and everyone knows how that’ll end.

But she can end it now. She can still win this thing.

Beth falters.

She doesn’t move for a second.

Then she raises her sword one last time and strikes, the blade burying itself straight into Tibbs’s face. He falls backwards, the sword pointing towards the sky. His cannon fires. He’s dead.

Beth won.

Addy staggers.

No.

No, no, no.

She can’t do this.

Beth turns around, achingly slow. Her hands are empty, but Addy knows what she can do with just her fists. She raises her knife.

Blood bubbles up from Beth’s throat, trickles down her chin. Her eyes are bloodshot and filled with pain. No need for pretending now. Beth’s chest heaves up and down, up and down, but Addy’s frozen.

Something’s wrong.

Then Beth begins to fall in slow motion, her hands dropping away and revealing what Addy couldn’t see before. Blood. The heft of a knife, blade stuck so deep it doesn’t even move when Beth’s knees crash against the ground.

Addy shoots forward to catch the last of Beth’s fall. Already Beth’s skin is cold against her own. She shivers, but she’s sweating. Her body feels heavy in Addy’s exhausted arms, almost impossibly so, and Addy struggles to pull her closer to her chest where her heart hammers against her ribs. Where it’ll hammer for years to come.

Beth’s eyes are unfocused as she stares up at Addy’s face, but she’s smiling or at least attempting to. Her mouth is like a cherry bomb, blood everywhere. Her lips move, as if she’s trying to speak but she doesn’t make a sound except for the low rattling every time she breathes.

Their hands find each other and their fingers entangle and they don’t look away from each other, even if Addy isn’t sure Beth is really looking.

They always knew this was going to happen. Somewhere deep down inside of them, they always knew. Even if they never admitted it. This was an inevitability, something nothing they would’ve said or done could change. Only one of them was gonna make it out of this arena, and it was always Addy. She wanted it, even more than Beth. It’s hers now.

It’s what Beth wanted.

There are a million things Addy could say right now, but none of them are right. What do you say to the person lying in your arms, about to draw their dying breath?

I’m sorry?

You deserved better?

I wish things were different?

Thank you for everything?

Beth already knows all these things, she must.

Beth’s lips move again. “Addy,” she says. Her voice is barely above a whisper, barely even audible at all. “Don’t cry, Addy.”

Addy wipes her face with the back of her hand, smearing Beth’s blood all over, and Beth laughs.

She stills, the ghost of her last laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all forever frozen in time. Beth’s cannon fires.

Addy makes sure to be gentle when she puts Beth’s body down, makes sure to close her eyes and kiss her forehead. Everything aches and hurts and whines when she stretches her back.

Then the trumpets begin to blare, and Claudius Templesmith’s voice booms through the arena.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present Adelaide Hanlon from District 7—victor of the seventy-second annual Hunger Games!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to thank everyone who read/left kudo's/commented this fic. i appreciate you all more than i know how to say. i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i loved writing it.
> 
> did you think this would be how the story ends? come find me on twitter @luthvers or on tumblr @ lenacorporations, or leave a comment. not to sound like a broken record, but it really does help and i love reading every single one of them.
> 
> special thanks to [as](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFirstDayOfSpring), who's the best proofreader and best friend anyone could ask for. if you watched person of interest, go read her fics.


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